Monday, December 15, 2008

100 Things I Have Done As a Geologist

Geotripper has started this meme. List out 100 things you have done as a geologist. The entire list is below with stuff I have done or experienced in bold. My explanations in italic.

1. See an erupting volcano2. See a glacier - Glacier National Park, Montana3. See an active geyser such as those in Yellowstone, New Zealand or the type locality of Iceland4. Visit the Cretaceous/Tertiary (KT) Boundary. Possible locations include Gubbio, Italy, Stevns Klint, Denmark, the Red Deer River Valley near Drumheller, Alberta.5. Observe (from a safe distance) a river whose discharge is above bankful stage6. Explore a limestone cave.Try Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park, or the caves of Kentucky or TAG (Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia)- Lurray Caverns in Virginia. 7. Tour an open pit mine, such as those in Butte, Montana, Bingham Canyon, Utah, Summitville, Colorado, Globe or Morenci, Arizona, or Chuquicamata, Chile. - Mid Proterozoic porphyry copper deposit, Malanjkhand, central India8. Explore a subsurface mine. - Late Paleozoic coal deposits in central India Gondwana rift basins.9. See an ophiolite,such as the ophiolite complex in Oman or the Troodos complex on the Island Cyprus (if on a budget, try the Coast Ranges or Klamath Mountains of California). - Cenozoic ophiolite in Ladakh Himalayas10. An anorthosite complex, such as those in Labrador, the Adirondacks, and Niger (there's some anorthosite in southern California too).

11. A slot canyon. Many of these amazing canyons are less than 3 feet wide and over 100 feet deep. They reside on the Colorado Plateau. Among the best are Antelope Canyon, Brimstone Canyon, Spooky Gulch and the Round Valley Draw.12. Varves, whether you see the type section in Sweden or examples elsewhere.13. An exfoliation dome,such as those in the Sierra Nevada.14. A layered igneous intrusion, such as the Stillwater complex in Montana or the Skaergaard Complex in Eastern Greenland.15. Coastlines along the leading and trailing edge of a tectonic plate (check out The Dynamic Earth - The Story of Plate Tectonics - an excellent website).16. A gingko tree, which is the lone survivor of an ancient group of softwoods that covered much of the Northern Hemisphere in the Mesozoic.17. Living and fossilized stromatolites (Glacier National Park is a great place to see fossil stromatolites, while Shark Bay in Australia is the place to see living ones) - Proterozoic central and south India. 18. A field of glacial erratics19. A caldera20. A sand dune more than 200 feet high

21. A fjord -New Zealand22. A recently formed fault scarp23. A megabreccia - Himalayas24. An actively accreting river delta- Krishna river delta east coast India25. A natural bridge - Deccan Basalts about 100 km east of Pune, India26. A large sinkhole - Virginia, Florida27. A glacial outwash plain28. A sea stack29. A house-sized glacial erratic30. An underground lake or river - Florida31. The continental divide - Glacier National Park, Montana32. Fluorescent and phosphorescent minerals33. Petrified trees - Cretaceous, Central India34. Lava tubes - Deccan Basalts, West India35. The Grand Canyon. All the way down. And back.36. Meteor Crater, Arizona, also known as the Barringer Crater, to see an impact crater on a scale that is comprehensible37. The Great Barrier Reef, northeastern Australia, to see the largest coral reef in the world.38. The Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada, to see the highest tides in the world (up to 16m)39. The Waterpocket Fold, Utah, to see well exposed folds on a massive scale.40. The Banded Iron Formation, Michigan, to better appreciate the air you breathe.

41. The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania,42. Lake Baikal, Siberia, to see the deepest lake in the world (1,620 m) with 20 percent of the Earth's fresh water.43. Ayers Rock (known now by the Aboriginal name of Uluru), Australia. This inselberg of nearly vertical Precambrian strata is about 2.5 kilometers long and more than 350 meters high44. Devil's Tower, northeastern Wyoming, to see a classic example of columnar jointing - Not in Wyoming, but seen classic columnar jointing at Gilbert's Hill, Mumbai (Bombay).45. The Alps.46. Telescope Peak, in Death Valley National Park. From this spectacular summit you can look down onto the floor of Death Valley - 11,330 feet below.47. The Li River, China, to see the fantastic tower karst that appears in much Chinese art48. The Dalmation Coast of Croatia, to see the original Karst.49. The Gorge of Bhagirathi, one of the sacred headwaters of the Ganges, in the Indian Himalayas, where the river flows from an ice tunnel beneath the Gangatori Glacier into a deep gorge.50. The Goosenecks of the San Juan River, Utah, an impressive series of entrenched meanders.51. Shiprock, New Mexico, to see a large volcanic neck

52. Land's End, Cornwall, Great Britain, for fractured granites that have feldspar crystals bigger than your fist.53. Tierra del Fuego, Chile and Argentina, to see the Straights of Magellan and the southernmost tip of South America.54. Mount St. Helens, Washington, to see the results of recent explosive volcanism.55. The Giant's Causeway and the Antrim Plateau, Northern Ireland, to see polygonally fractured basaltic flows.56. The Great Rift Valley in Africa.57. The Matterhorn, along the Swiss/Italian border, to see the classic "horn".58. The Carolina Bays, along the Carolinian and Georgian coastal plain59. The Mima Mounds near Olympia, Washington60. Siccar Point, Berwickshire, Scotland, where James Hutton (the "father" of modern geology) observed the classic unconformity

71. The volcanic landscapes of the Canary Islands72. The Pyrennees Mountains73. The Lime Caves at Karamea on the West Coast of New Zealand74. Denali (an orogeny in progress) - Himalayas75. A catastrophic mass wasting event76. The giant crossbeds visible at Zion National Park77. The black sand beaches in Hawaii (or the green sand-olivine beaches)78. Barton Springs in Texas79. Hells Canyon in Idaho80. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado

81. The Tunguska Impact site in Siberia82. Feel an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 5.0.- Recent September earthquake near Satara, Maharashtra was just about 5.083. Find dinosaur footprints in situ84. Find a trilobite (or a dinosaur bone or any other fossil) - Cretaceous south India, Ordovician S. Appalachians.85. Find gold, however small the flake86. Find a meteorite fragment87. Experience a volcanic ashfall88. Experience a sandstorm89. See a tsunami90. Witness a total solar eclipse

91. Witness a tornado firsthand. (Important rules of this game).92. Witness a meteor storm, a term used to describe a particularly intense (1000+ per minute) meteor shower93. View Saturn and its moons through a respectable telescope.94. See the Aurora borealis, otherwise known as the northern lights.95. View a great naked-eye comet, an opportunity which occurs only a few times per century - Halley's comet 198696. See a lunar eclipse97. View a distant galaxy through a large telescope98. Experience a hurricane99. See noctilucent clouds100. See the green flash

Looks like I have a lot of ground to cover. Especially, what.... you geologist?, but....no....Grand Canyon?!!!!

5 comments:

I hope you get a chance to see the Grand Canyon some time! I have never had the opportunity to see the Himalaya or the Deccan Traps or other sites in India. I would love to see what sights you would add to the list.

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ABOUT THIS BLOG

I am a Sedimentary Geologist. On Rapid Uplift I write mostly about topics within the geosciences, but sometimes on biological evolution and environmental issues. I like to travel and in my free time I teach 12 year old kids soccer and rugby.